Colby frustrated with Second Street finalization progress

During their monthly meeting held last week Tuesday, the Colby city council examined the current state of the Second Street project, which is scheduled to finish by the end of the month. However, following exchanges with Melvin Companies, the construction company under contract for the project, and their subcontractors, disputes over the work already done may effect that deadline.

The city has asked that sections of sidewalk that were installed last year as part of the project be replaced due to spalling or places where fallen leaves appear to have been finished into the concrete. As of the June 6 city council meeting, Melvin had not agreed to do so.

Department of Public Works head Harland Higley met with representatives from Melvin and subcontractors S.D. Ellenbecker and County Materials three weeks prior to the city council meeting to look over the areas that the city wanted replaced. A concrete specialist was also present and was to create a report regarding the work that had been done thus far on the sidewalks.

Higley had yet to see the results of that report, and according to MSA Professional Services senior project manager Mike Voss, representatives from both Melvin and Ellenbecker had stated they had not seen the report either. However, attempts from the city to set up another in-person meeting between their representatives and the companies’ had thus far gone unanswered.

The two sides seem to disagree on what exactly needs to be done to adequately repair the sidewalk, with Voss saying that the companies believed some of the damage to just be cosmetic in nature and thus not needing to be fixed.

“They are refusing to repair that,” Voss said in reference to some of the smaller fixes the city would like done. “They just want to remove the bigger cracked sections. And of course that’s not acceptable, and the last two weeks we’ve been pushing them to meet and they haven’t.”

Voss also said that there seemed to be some friction between the companies involved over who was responsible for the spalling and cracking.

“[Melvin] is saying its Ellenbecker’s problem,” he said. “They’re the ones that poured the concrete and ordered the concrete from County. If it’s the concrete that the spalling is from, then Ellenbecker would have to talk with County.”

“But the long and short of the story is that Melvin is responsible for all of this as the general contractor,” Higley added.

The council appeared to be in agreement with Voss that the work would need to be redone.

“It does not matter who’s fault it is, it needs to be taken care of,” council member Dan Hederer said during the meeting.

A letter was drafted by Voss to be sent following the June 6 meeting asking that the repairs in question be made, though he noted that the companies would likely be hard-pressed to meet the June 30 deadline.

“Even if they were to start pulling out the concrete tomorrow, they will have two and a half weeks to put the final lift on the road, which probably makes it almost impossible for them to get it done by then,” Voss said.

If the project were to extend past that deadline, liquidated damages would start to be assessed and the city would see cuts to their final payments for the work done.